Evil as Explained in the Clementine and Lactantian Writings 9781463211981

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ANALECTA GORGIANA

Volume 12

General Editor

George Anton Kiraz Analecta Gorgiana is a collection of long essays and short monographs which are consistently cited by modern scholars but previously difficult to find because of their original appearance in obscure publications. Now conveniently published, these essays are not only vital for our understanding of the history of research and ideas, but are also indispensable tools for the continuation and development of on-going research. Carefully selected by a team of scholars based on their relevance to modern scholarship, these essays can now be fully utilized by scholars and proudly owned by libraries.

Evil as Explained in the Clementine and Lactantian Writings

Evil as Explained in the Clementine and Lactantian Writings

F. W . BUSSELL

GORGIAS PRESS

2006

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2006

The special contents of this edition are copyright > fitVTOt O Stvrfpos Km TpiTOS fOTtV €IS" CTVflipfp rrj v\rf 2va5i ovar) tvoT avT-ijv, rr\i^crai 5c vir' aurijs . . . . Kal a-jrepioirTos iavrov ytvtrai Kal anrtTai TOV alo&rjTov . ... u fiiv vparros 0eos iarni itrrais o 5« SCIJTepos ¿¡xnaktv (OTI Kivovpuvos .... SiopLoXoyrjawfitOa ijfiiv avro ¿¡xoXoytav OVK apKpiffSrjT'qaifiov aKOvaai, Toy fi(V uponov &tov dp you ( £vpnravTtw Kal $affi\ia, Toy SrjptovpyiKdy Si Beov ifltnovtiv di ovpavov lu APOILONIUS, in E o s . iv. 13. T h e F i r s t God dthai .... oiSivoi oiSk itapa TOJV KpttTToyajv fjnep ¿if1*ov5' tOTiv t .... yrj ayiijtJi tpvroy Tj Tpetpci ^w % arjp, AJ ^T) Trpaatari ye T 1 fitaffpa. T h e present creation, nay, man himself all

b u t his innermost spiritual centre, was essentially contemptible in the eyes of

these speculators of the Imperial age.—PLDTARCH, IS. et Os. § 78 6 5' iaTi fiiv avros dntvTaTOj TTJ? yiji dxpavros Kal afiiayros Kal xaOapbs ovalas airaffjjs ( hiX°lJL*vrl* KAL 8a-vaT0v' 'AvOpwnwv 5T tpvxats (VTaudoi pXv {nro aaiptaruiv K wepiexofuvais OVK T(TTL fitTovoia TOW Qtov, TT\I}Y oaov bvttpaTos ajiaupou OIYTT vorqati Bid (pikoffotpias. T h e only way to this God was on the P a t h of K n o w ledge ; H e could not be approached by the practical l i f e . — T h e gnostical idea of the Second God, the Creator, has been adopted fiom this system in Tennyson.

[2]

Subordinate

Dualism.

135

the former is wholly good and merciful (Nature), while the apparent asperity of the latter (History) is due to human sin, and represents not so much an essential attribute of the Xoyos, as our altered relation to his uniform benevolence.' The Epicurean deity, whose existence rested on the credit of dreams and survived only in deference to popular fanaticism (Epicurus had no intention of emulating the fate of Socrates or the confessorship of Anaxagoras),—this god, I say, had been long since conducted to the extreme limits of the known Universe, and forbidden to meddle with the course of the world, either in natural law (of which he was himself a manifestation) or in human history (to which he was entirely indifferent). The Stoics, with their habitual and unpardonable offence of retaining language which they laboured to deprive of all significance, are loud in their praises of the divine goodness, and subtle in their arguments on behalf of Providence ;

but it

is a goodness which

a Providence which is unconscious.

is

purposeless, and

And it is only this

poetic language of religious sentiment, which preserves the Stoics from the charge of atheism, or a blank admiration of physical force; of a certain steady equipoise or proportion in the Universe.

I t is also worthy of careful notice that those

of the School who approach cosmogony from the human and the practical side, as

SENECA

and

ATJIIELIUS,

ever tend to

a half-Platonic Mysticism; which, so far from identifying the ' god within' and the course of the world without, leaves them in reality in irreconcilable opposition.

Lastly, the

Platonist, if I may be allowed to speak at this point of the later development of the third century, insists with singular earnestness upon the doctrine of necessary Sequence, natural concomitance, as against creation: not by the will of God (irpoaipeati) but (TCO elvai) by Emanation does this universe, whether of thoughts or things, arise 1 . The Gnostic meantime 1

The idea of deliberate creation in Greek philosophy is only fouhd in the

half-myth of the

1'imaeus.

ARISTOTLE

shifts the centre of gravity from

[3]

Subordinate

136

(against whose

Dualism.

bitter discontent the genial optimism

of

Alexandria was to array its forces) involves the God and a Personal God to the strivings of N a t u r e after an unapproachable Ideal, who or which may be unconscious of it.

Through PROCLOS, this notion that all

orders gaze upwards, and not down on their angering inferiors, enters Western thought

with

DIONYSIUS

AREOPAGITA

and

EKIGENA.

PLOTINDS

expresses a widely current opinion, Enn. v. 2, 1 : òv yàp réAdoc r ù FAREÌV

FUJST

?xci"

SeìaSm, oiov inttptppv-Q

irtTroirjttfv aXKty rù Sì ftvófinov Aù-rà 0Kéirov Hai Noi? OUTCUS.

KOÌ

TO

irnepw\?ipis

clearly

/Jijiiv AVTOV

t'is Avrò ìvimpàip-q imi èirA7//xu0jj /cai ìytvtro npàs

The Higher Powers do not indeed perceive that

virtue is gone out of them . they are unaware of what is after all a degeneration or an aboition ( i f f r e ' ^ a , ticrpoifm).

Plato, I believe, stands alone in

anticipating the Christian view (though, no doubt, imperfectly), that

the

world took its rise, not in a fluent passivity from a n Original Source, but from the desire of the Creator to communicate H i s own goodness and happiness to other beings.

' H o w came it to be so I ' asks Lotze (Philos. of Rei. xlvi).

' Is this transition to Reality an Emanation b y natural necessity from God's Being ! or is it the act of a W i l l which g a v e reality to that which understanding and imagination could only represent as possible? . . . .' (xlviii) : ' If the Divine Thought of the W o r l d is to have a realization other than that which it already has in the Divine Mind, this can only be by God's creating individual

finite

Spirits,

by His causing to arise in them the cosmic thoughts

in question as external perceptions . . . .

and at this rate Creation may be

defined as follows ; God permitted the thought, which at first was only His, to become the thought of other Spirits.' . . . .

(li) : ' W e cannot wish to define

the exact way in which Creation issued forth from the Creator, but only the import of the creative act, which is this : that with a view to the existence of the Spirit-World, which of itself is no natmal being of God, a Divine notion of Creation world.' . . . .

Will

conscquence flouting from

was necessary . . . .

differs from that of an Emanation

And

this is how

the the

or development of this

(lii) : ' Religious feeling has ever regarded as God's motive (in

creating the world) the expansive love, which urges H i m to communicate H i s holiness to other beings, and this thought quite satisfies the yearning in us, which led us to suppose that God laboured in creating the world ; for according to it, the Creation arose not without this sympathy and enduring interest. I t was not a matter-of-fact result flowing from the Divine Will, nor was that W i l l indifferent ; rather ÌB it true that God is bound up with Creation b y a perpetual sympathy.' ('Ayaffòs T]V, 07adiù hi ovith vtpl ovSfvùs Qv8t7roTt iyyiyvctat tpOovor lav rip.)

TOVTOV

5' iteròs

iràvra on naktora ytvtaBai i^ovXr/ffri TrapanXijaia

A recent commentator on this passage warns us : ' O f course Plato's

words are not to be interpreted with a crude literalness.' •;!) W h a t is the Symbolic or allegoi ic meaning of goodness 1 is a question which m a y arise in some minds.

s yap air' avrov ra irp&ra Kpfirrova, ra bevTfpa ^rrora (here is a doctrine at the root of all Gnostic Emanationism), ¿TT' avOpditcav TO Ivavrwv evpio-Koptv, ra Trp&ra ytipova, ra hevrepa Kpeirrova. It is probable that physical excellence gives its best first; but the idea of gradual progress seems inseparable from the idea of moral perfection. The rejection of evil implies the possibility of yielding to its enticements ; and in a measure even this yielding is a necessary moment in an upward course. But it is in vain that we look for steady consistency; 33. two new discrepancies arise: r; Katria appears as a personal power, rival of God ; and the antecedence of good in physical creation seems abandoned : fire! yap, ¿ s Z (Tthaeiv vntcrytTO tov ptkkovra alava, are òr/ fiéyar óvra Kaì àlòiov. Between these man is absolutely free to choose : Toy ovv avOpumov avrt^ovenov ewoirjerer, ei7trr)8eiorr/ra typvra veveiv Ttphs hi ¡3ov\(TaL -apa^eis . . . ws etvai tòv av6pu>-nov èk ^vpaparcov bvo, drjkeias re Kaì apptvos ; and thus, X I X . 23. ó Koo-p-os opyavóv ìcrn t€\vlk&s yeyovós, Iva Tip èv ó p.ìv tov TrapóvTOS Kaì irpoo-Kaipov Koapov vópw ¡3a Kpdtrei s ru> OVTI Tidy eartv. I t cannot be denied t h a t we have here the worst features of the Necessitarian and Impersonal view of GOD, which lies at the root of Gnosticisms. I n this difficulty the writer flies to a refuge which he had once abandoned with contempt—the letter of Scripture : eirei Tavra aypaipa Tvy^avei K < H crTo^acrixols W E M A T W J X E V A , /X?/ uavTua f}jxiv OVT(OS EX ¡3fftaiovcrfla> (compare O H I G E N , who imposes a similar condition on his speculation in his 1 P r i n c i p i a ' ; and i t may here be remarked that the Doctrine of Reserve, so generally supposed to be t h e edifice of aristocratic pride and intellectualism, may with equal likelihood be founded on h u m i l i t y : the d-Kopp-qTCdv evptais is not certain and there(W

[39]

1-2

Subordinate

Dualism.

fore cannot be communicated to all men as authoritative Dogma). But a still more complete exculpation of the Devil awaits us ; in XX. 9, Lazarus now boldly puts a question, which has been on our tongues for some time past : Flak hwarov tvXoyov eivai TÒv virò ©eov OiKaiov Karaaravra Yìovr]pòv ware àrrej3r]V avrov àyyéXu>v crvv rois ajxapTiaXoLs ti? rò (TKOTOS TÒ Kararepov •nép.niaOaL ; there remains, then, to sever the notion of pain from the Devil's sojourn in Hell ; for the Devil is an Angel who fears GOD, performs His will, and punishes His traitors. Peter : Kàycò ó/jL0À0y(3 on ó rioi'Tjp;)? wonjpòf ouSèr itoiei, Katìò TOV hodévra avrtà l>o/xoi> exTeXei. KaiToi irpoaiperriv t\(av KaKr\v opuùs t u 1Tpòs TÒV Qcòv oùSèi' ¿Succo? TTpacrrrei (notice that Trpoaipeans has now lost its true personal and ethical significance, and is confused with the necessary result of a certain mixture of elements). AiaftaWwv 8e 8i8ao-KaA.ous akydeias tis tvéòpav ru>v anpiTuv koÌ 8ta/3oXos ò aùròs òvopLa^erai.- -To this conclusion there is but one corollary, a modified belief in ' happiness in Hell.' 'O rioj/rjpòs (tkotii1 yaiptiv Kara rr/i> Kpatriv yeyovds, p-era. tS>v òpoòovXaìv àyyf\(ov eh TÒ TOV Taprdpov CTKOTOS Karekditiv ^SeTai" i\òv yàp irvpi TO CTKOTOS. Whereas men's souls, (¡ìoìtòs Kadapov crrayóves ovcrat, are punished in such environment. Thus it is clear that man's spiritual natuie differs from the devil's, and in reality only the former is free, the latter being physically so compounded that his character is Predetermined and is not the result of free-will. If he were not thus sent into darkness, rore ov bvvarai rj KOKOÌS avrov yaLpovaa Kpaais p.(TaavyKpi6i]vai ds àyadov irpoaipetriv (?) (f). (This sentence is very ambiguous, but seems to imply a future change in his temper when his work of thwarting, chastising, deceiving, in accordance with GOD'S will shall be over.) KAT ovrus àyaSòs (? àyadoTs) crvvelvai KpiOrjutTai. ravrrj pàkkov, ori KOKOIS xa^Pov